J. S. Bach, young no wig

Today we’re in classical mode. Most scholars believe
J. S. Bach’s last work was a 5 1/2 minute Chorale, “Vor Deinem Thron” (“Before Your Throne”), one of the most extraordinary in the Western Classical repertoire. Knowing that he didn’t have the capacity to complete his comprehensive The Art of Fugue—and he was also now blind—Bach dictated the Chorale from his deathbed.

This work is appreciated by all who hear it, but most listeners do not realize how sophisticated and wholly original in conception this dramatic work truly is. If you listen to the piece again, immediately upon hearing it the first time, then as the Chorale builds to its marvelous conclusion you can receive the full import of what Bach was actually doing. The following commentary has helped many listeners.

Vor Deinem Thron — notes on Bach’ Last Piece

Most scholars believe that Bach’s actual last work was not the Art of Fugue, but a Chorale that he dictated from his deathbed when he knew he wouldn’t be able to finish Art of Fugue. Some dispute this. But for myself, there are three compelling reasons to believe that it was indeed his last work:

• written in open score, like Art of Fugue
• the words (below)
• and most compelling, the music itself

Vor Deinem Thron would be universally admired, if a universe of folks could actually have the chance to hear it. Those who have heard it are struck by the extraordinarily heartfelt music, culminating in the simple theme arising toward the end. I wasn’t able to find anything written about the music itself (I assume there must be something). And I was unable, after a long surf on the Web, to find any current recording—in particular none from any world-recognized group. The 1964 monaural recoding on this site, battered through repeated playing, includes a recording of Art of Fugue and the Chorale, all played beautifully by The Fine Arts Quartet and the New York Woodwind Quintet, a remarkable performance and a splendid transcription (by the flutist, Samuel Baron).

The analogy

I believe this is one the most, if not the most, transcendent works that Bach composed in this form. Given its short duration, it is unmatched by very few other works. My first impression was that the piece was a search, represented in the piece by what seemed to be a search for the theme, which appears near the end. But after listening to the piece again, while the theme was still resonating, I realized that Bach has actually presented, literally, a transformation – a seed developing into a flower.

I do not gravitate toward programmatic interpretations, but in order to convey the truth that I felt, I am compelled to use (to even over-use) an “organic” analogy. So I asked to be forgiven in advance because I am going to go over the top on this. But an item and its analogy can sometimes be reflections of the same higher truth, which I believe is the case here.

The music — and why one should listen to it immediately again

Upon listening the second time, immediately after the first, one realizes that Bach is creating, or revealing, portions of the simple but moving theme, as if it were a being not yet born. These appear early on and develop and intertwine as only Bach would develop them. However, it would be impossible to extract this theme until one actually hears it complete for the first time, which is why it requires, at least, a second listening soon after.

After the first three of the four entrances of the woodwinds made more striking by the overarching way each of the four entrances occur, changed each time and not synchronized in an obvious way with “the world below,” the “soil” is prepared. The seed begins to stir more audibly in measure 11. It builds, with suggestive beginnings and middles, replete with subtle “sub-transfigurations” — extraordinarily compact and profound variations on parts of the plant. (You are thinking that this analogy is painful, but you have to hear it and decide for yourself.)

Then toward the end of measure 33, shortly after the third entrance of the woodwind, there is an unwritten but brief, superb caesura (i.e., a complete silence). Then the theme, wonderfully, first appears in augmentation (i.e., in this case, twice as slow) and in a middle voice – corresponding, perhaps, to the effort a plant makes to move up out of the earth and into the light and air. But it makes perfect musical sense. The plant pushes up through the soil — the soil that both nurtured the seed and provided the necessary resistance; the soil is all of the rest of the music that surrounds the plant). As if to confirm this (overly flowery) analogy, once finally through, the theme immediately appears in normal tempo in another voice, and the repetitions increase as the flower breathes sunlight and air and begins to blossom. (I actually begin to imagine petal after petal blooming and blooming…)

The chorale reaches a climax in the last (fourth) entrance of the chorale, which now finally  announces the theme, also in augmentation, and at the same time is overlapping the theme sung by the strings in regular tempo. The flower is blooming in “the above.” More repetitions in a stretto-like form and then the (non-Mahlerized) ending (i.e., there are not five pseudo-endings). The end is perfect with all the sophistication concealed as the theme speaks directly, heart to heart, a summing up of the core of a life.

Flowers, works, and souls

Bach is saying musically that the richness of the transformation process — there is incredible richness and variety throughout — is where life is fully lived. The very beginning is given from we know not where and the ending section seems inevitable from the seed. And there is the middle, a big part of a human being’s work. Of course Bach wasn’t “thinking” about all this, but composing isn’t just feeling either.

And what a work, is this “simple” piece — for it conveys an organic simplicity and transcendence with an essence in total surrender to a higher unknown, one that surrounds us all.

Now given everything we know about Bach, it isn’t hard to imagine that he might have chosen this Chorale for his last Earthly statement. The words:

Vor Deinem Thron

Before Thy throne I stand
O God, and ask,
Turn thy gracious countenance
Not to my sins.